AEROPLANE JULY 2018 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com 9July 2018 News
TEICHMAN TO HANG UP
DISPLAY HELMET
North Weald-based Hangar 11
Collection owner Peter Teichman
has announced that he will retire
from display flying at the end of the
2018 season, his last show being
the Shuttleworth Race Day on 7
October, when he will fly his P-51D.
BOBSLEIGH FLIES
The one-off Reid and Sigrist RS
Bobsleigh, VZ728/G-AGOS, flew at
Spanhoe in early May following
restoration by Windmill Aviation.
The experimental prone pilot
research machine — which first flew
on 9 July 1945 as the RS3 Desford
— is owned by Leicester County
Council and was previously stored
in an old miners’ washroom at the
now defunct Snibston Discovery
Museum near Coalville.
ANOTHER VIGGEN FOR SWAFHF
The Swedish Air Force Historic Flight
(SwAFHF) Saab SK 37 Viggen,
Fv37809/SE-DXO, flew again at
Såtenäs on 15 May after several
years in storage and a restoration to
airworthiness. Originally delivered
to the Swedish Air Force in February
1974, 37809 last flew in September
2007 while being operated by the
air arm’s test unit, based at
Linköping/Malmen. This two-seater
joins the SwAFHF’s single-seat
AJS 37 Viggen, 37098/SE-DXN.
AVIODROME BUYS CONVAIR
Convair 340 ZS-BRV has been
donated by Rovos Air in South Africa
to the Aviodrome museum at
Lelystad, the Netherlands. The
twin-engined airliner — originally
built for the US Air Force as a C-131B
— will be flown to its new home this
July, and thereafter kept airworthy.
Twenty-four examples of the type
were operated by Dutch national
airline KLM. BEN DUNNELL
PREDATORS TO UK MUSEUMS
With the retirement of the type by
the US Air Force, two General
Atomics MQ-1B Predator unmanned
aerial vehicles were delivered to
major UK museums in mid-April.
IWM Duxford has received serial
03-33120, while the second
example has gone to the RAF
Museum London at Hendon and
will be displayed in its new Age of
Uncertainty exhibition. The Predator
has been replaced by the more
capable MQ-9 Reaper. BEN DUNNELLNEWS IN BRIEF
O
n 4 May the Old
Warden-based, BAE
Systems Heritage
Flight-owned Avro
XIX Anson G-AHKX fl ew in to
RAF Coningsby wearing its
new colours, the familiar
two-tone blue civil scheme
having been replaced with that
of the Coningsby Station Flight
Anson C19, TX176, which
operated from the Lincolnshire
base as a ‘hack’ on general
communications duties during
the early 1960s.
The repaint was carried out
at Gloucestershire Airport by
Ardent Paint Care, from where
the Anson was fl own direct to
Coningsby by BAE test pilot
Peter Kosogorin. The idea for
the new scheme is at least
partly to mark the RAF’s 100th
anniversary. BAE Systems is a
strong backer of the RAF 100
programme and is heavily
embedded at Coningsby with
600 civilians working to
support the RAF’s fl eet of
Typhoons. After landing, ‘HKX
— which remains based at Old
Warden, ‘parented’ by theShuttleworth Collection — was
welcomed by the station
commander, Gp Capt Mike
Baulkwill.
The machine fi rst fl ew in
November 1946. It was
operated by Smiths Aircraft
Instruments at Staverton,
Meridian Air Maps at
Shoreham, Treffi eld Aviation— set up by Lord Trefgarne
and Charles Masefi eld —
fl ying freight, and Kemps
Aerial Surveys at
Southampton, who used the
Avro for the fi nal fi ve years of
its career before retiring it in- G-AHKX was then
acquired by the Strathallan
Collection and moved to
Auchterarder, Perthshire.
During July 1981 it was
bought by British Aerospace at
the famous Strathallan auction.
A rebuild to fl ying condition at
Woodford was intended to be
carried out by apprentices, but
ended up being undertaken
by volunteer retired Avro staff,
who still retained the
necessary skills. It fl ew again
on 8 March 2002.
The original TX176 was built
at Yeadon and delivered to the
British Air Forces of
Occupation Communications
Wing Station Flight at RAF
Gatow in Berlin. It then served
with the Home Command
Communications Flight,
Coastal Command
Communications Flight, the
Station Flights at Gibraltar,
Kinloss and Coningsby and
fi nally with Transport
Command’s Northern
Communications Squadron.
The Anson was sold off into
civilian hands in February
1967, becoming G-AVGR, but
only lasted a couple more
years before being scrapped
in March 1969.BAE Anson repainted
for RAF 100th
The newly repainted Avro XIX G-AHKX, showing
the Coningsby Station Flight markings in public for
the fi rst time at Old Warden on 6 May. ADRIAN M. BALCH
INSET: The real TX176, on display at Odiham in
September 1964. ADRIAN M. BALCHThe civil scheme
has been replaced by
that of the Coningsby
Station Flight Anson
C19, TX176, during the
early 1960 s06-15_AM_News_July18_cc C.indd 9 04/06/2018 14: